WHEN Tina Malone was told she would be diving into bed with someone young and sexy for the new series of Shameless she couldn’t wait to get started.

When Tina Malone was told she would be diving into bed with someone young and sexy for the new series of Shameless she couldn’t wait to get started.

It was only when she received her script, and realised she would be getting it on with another woman, that panic set in!

“Put it this way, it came as a bit of a shock,” revealed Tina, whose fun-loving character Mimi Maguire kicks off series eight by slipping between the sheets with ­sexy new neighbour Avril Powell, played by Karen Bryson.

Tina admitted: “Mimi has had her fair share of sexual encounters, including one with a 14-year-old boy she thought was 18.

“But she has never gone to bed with another woman. However, it’s clear that she relishes the ­opportunity this time around. Like a lot of Shameless, the sex between the two women is pretty full on.”

Tina, 47, has lost an eye-watering 6st 4lbs, over the past year but she denies doing it to make herself ­trimmer for the sex scenes.

She confided: “I may not look like a hippo or a pig anymore – and hopefully the fans tuning in to my sex scenes won’t be revolted by the sight of my body – but I’m never going to look like Sharon Stone either.”

Liverpudlian Tina, who married personal trainer Paul Chase, 19 years her junior, in the summer added: “I would never deny that a slimmer woman is going to get more sex on screen if she loses a bit of weight – and more sex off it, come to that,”

“But losing all that weight was never about me trying to boost my confidence and make me feel better about myself or about the scenes I was going to be filming. I am a highly intelligent, articulate woman who didn’t need to drop a few dress sizes to feel better about herself. I felt pretty good about myself.

“I lost weight for me, nobody else, I wanted to get myself in as good a shape as possible in the hope that I could become a mum again.

“And I actually got a bit fed up when people tried to second guess why I was doing it – and actually tried to stop me doing it.

“They said stuff like ‘You will lose your personality if you shed all that weight’. My response to that was ‘Why, have I got a fat personality?’ Saying something like that to me was just daft. I’ll admit that my personality has changed a bit, now that I’ve lost all this weight.

“I am still arrogant, vain, self-obsessed as most actors are – in the way I was when I looked more like an elephant or an Ugly Santa.

“I just feel more comfortable ­being slimmer, it’s easier. I didn’t like standing out from the crowd. I’m not the loud, gobby person that people think I am.

“And I wanted to prove I could not only lose the weight but keep it off too. I don’t come from a fat family, I basically got fat ­because I’m a greedy b*stard who couldn’t resist food. I’ve got an iron will, when it comes to just about everything else in life, but not food I couldn’t resist it.

“So shedding the weight was about showing that I could control every area of my life, even what I put into my stomach.

“And so far it’s working, which makes me feel fantastic.”

Tina, who has 30-year-old ­daughter Danielle after a brief, teenage liaison, is happy to admit she had two gastric bands fitted to help her shift the weight. And her cycle of IVF treatment to have a second child is also well documented but it is a world away from Mimi.

Tina explained: “Mimi has a little daughter, Cilla, in this new series and having those twins Ava and Grace on set to play the part of Cilla – has made me feel incredibly broody.

“The irony is that Mimi really struggles with having a little baby around the place. She’s feeling low about being a mum, she’s on the search for the ­father of her baby and she’s not ­feeling great now husband Paddy (Sean Gilder) has gone.

“In contrast, if I suddenly ­discovered I was having another child, I’d be jumping for joy and you’d hear me shouting about it all the way from Wythenshawe (the Manchester suburb where Shameless is filmed).

“That would be the icing on the cake, as far as I’m concerned.

“Getting married, to the man I love, losing all this weight and being so happy in Shameless is fantastic.

“Having another baby, at 47, would take me into dreamland and, God willing, it will happen.

“Paul and I are certainly trying, to make it happen.” Tina, who is in her character’s sixth season, says she is happier now than she’s ever been on Shameless.

“I’m getting some great storylines, the scripts are brilliant and I’ve never been happier on the show.”

As a sexy, slim and single cougar, Mimi can expect plenty more romantic encounters in the coming weeks

“Shameless has always had a lot of sex in it – it’s been a staple of the ­programme since it began, it is ­literally about people being shameless.

“But it’s never been there just to shock – it’s never gratuitous. Sex in Shameless can be provocative and cringe-making but never gratuitous. It’s real, it’s the kind of sex that people all over the country have every night of the week which is why we have to portray it in a genuine and convincing way. Keeping it real is key to the show’s success, whatever the characters are doing.

“So of course they don’t give me soft lighting to make me look like Sharon Stone, when I’m filming a bedroom scene.”

Tina, who also starred in Celebrity Big Brother 2009, says she would be delighted to stay in Shameless as long as the scripts continue to ­challenge her.

“I love Shameless too much to turn my back on it although I’m not ruling out doing other stuff besides. I admit I’ve done certain garbage shows, the dross of TV, in the past, to earn a few pennies. Just the other week, there was a producer in The Ivy restaurant in London trying to persuade me to do a reality show.

“And I don‘t rule it out. Serious acting may give me my dignity and respect but it’s not going to buy me a nice little apartment in Nice and it’s not going to make life as ­comfortable as I would like it for me, my baby or my twins, if I am lucky enough to have more kids.